Impermanence
by witchhuntress
Summary: It has always been believed that dead human souls become butterflies. But, what about dead butterflies?


**A/N: **This is set in the olden times, Sengoku Jidai, because there is just a beauty in the ancient world that I want to write about.

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**DISCLAIMER:** I am not Rumiko Takahashi; therefore, I cannot assure everyone that Inuyasha characters will be "in character" in this story because Rumiko-sensei is the only one who can completely, absolutely, and perfectly do that. What I can do is an "attempt of making her characters in-character" in _**my own plot**_.

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**Terms beforehand;**

**Kosode=**kimono with small sleeves

**Furisode=**kimono with long sleeves

**Obi=**sash

**Geta**=it's like a cross between a clog and flip-flops...

**Kikkō=**hexagon-shaped armor plates

**Haramaki=**a cuirass, or a conjoined breastplate and backplate

**Heko-obi=**a thin decorative lightly-hued silk sash worn by men

**Kappa=**a legendary creature that inhabits the ponds and rivers in Japanese folklore

* * *

**XDXDXDXDXDXDXD~nya~**

Sesshoumaru woke at the feeling of somebody blowing on his sinewy abdomen.

Without a breath, he gripped the violating woman by the back of her neck (to which she guh-ed) and pinned her to the ground beside him with a savage growl. Just when he was about to slice her head off with the venomous threads from his claws, he retracted with expanded amber eyes.

Brown eyes peeked out through the gaps of her tousled and shimmering black hair, which hid some of her face.

Brown eyes...which Sesshoumaru had been...yearning to see again for years.

But the daiyoukai could not believe it. He could not be easily persuaded, so his left hand cleared her hair out of her face, and it was nature that his orbs just slightly enlarged and that he didn't gasp.

_Rin?_ he thought in surprise.

She wasn't supposed to be there. She wasn't supposed to be there before him anymore...

Yet why...How come she's not dead?

Before he could speak, brown eyes glared at him, and then she seized him by the neck too and returned the favor of straddling him on the meadow with a strength twice his fierceness.

"Is this how you repay someone who just healed you, youkai?" she shouted angrily, and Sesshoumaru had never been at a loss for words than at that instance.

Stripped bare━except for his mokomoko covering his unspeakables━he was being held down by a lass who resembled his dead consort of three years. Her visage and figure were the same when Rin was eighteen. Her voice was the same...

But she was different. She was not robed in his given kimono; instead, she donned a cross collar waist jacket in a light green hue and with yellow and ruffled carnation linings on the hem and short sleeves. Longer peach sleeves trailed beyond the ruffles like an ordinary kimono sleeve while over her back and arms settled a transparent stole. Her peach floor-reaching skirt had parted in the middle as she perched on him. She was not the mellifluous, amiable, and conformable spouse he'd known. She was not the flower-giving, neck-hugging, and forehead-kissing lady he had come to, as per human's terms, "love."

She was Rin and not Rin.

Because of his long silence, she withdrew her hand on his neck and said on top of him, "Great. Now you're mute. Don't you know of any courtesy at all?"

So she quoth while on top of his almost nude form, and Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow and glanced at where she was sitting him down━to which her eyes followed, and she just returned an arched eyebrow herself.

"Well?" she pressed, not discomfited at all.

Sesshoumaru was then convinced (or trying to convince himself) that the woman above him was not the human who taught him affection. She _**couldn't**_ be Rin. Rin was not that brazen. She was innocent, easily abashed, and husband-deifying. She was...everything the "healer" before him was not━personality-wise.

But why...how could she have the same face?

Despite everything, at last, Sesshoumaru spoke calmly, "You look like her."

It was an admission and a ground for inquiry.

She blinked and inquired, "Who are you ta━?"

"Rin."

Still on top of him, she froze.

Sesshoumaru was never stupid, and he knew, by her bodily response, that her ears were familiar to the name. Although he was extremely doubtful, a part of the daiyoukai...was expectant.

She gazed at him in confusion but remained speechless. Then her pupils dilated as though something━a vision in her head━flitted by, and she watched him with perplexity.

"Who are you?" she gently managed, and it was as though she forgot her new self...

It was as though his wife really came back from death.

Smoothly the daiyoukai replied, "Sesshoumaru."

Again she became as still as stone, yet she soon joggled her head and glowered at him...

And she was his deceased mellow mate no more.

"Well then, _**Sesshoumaru**_, how did you know my name when I haven't even met you prior to this?" she demanded.

The Lord of the Western lands rumbled in dislike at her mocking tone, but she never faltered.

"Such insolence is insufferable," he reproached, now certain that the "Rin" before him was not his mistress.

A transmuter. A trick in the eye. She was anything but his wife, and her countenance was a mere mockery of the lady who'd become his weakness and strength.

After a moment, she twinkled and scowled at him. "I have no intention of becoming tolerable."

_Unforgivable_, Sesshoumaru mulled inwardly.

Before he could shove her off him to the nearest, thickest, and hardest tree trunk, he noted the greatest unlikeness with that "Rin" and his own.

"You smell peculiar." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Why?"

Her scent was neither that of a demon and a human...

_What is she? _Sesshoumaru wondered.

"Rin" smirked proudly but vaguely answered, "Of course. Or else you youkais wouldn't fear me."

The lord responded flatly, "I fear no one."

_**I am**__ the one __**most feared**_, he conceived.

"You should, or have you not heard of the _**Youkai's Bane**_?" she fleered.

He didn't deny nor affirm, but he just eyed her dubiously. He was going to transform to his bestial form to show who the real _**Youkai's Bane**_ was between the two of them, but he noticed that he couldn't move his legs as much as he wanted to...

And they were wounded, just like his arms and the rest of his body, except his abdomen...

At that instance, Sesshoumaru remembered what had happened: He had a brawl with his mother. After Rin's death, the former Lady of the West had been forcing him to take another mistress. The lack of an heir greatly reinforced her to contrive with a clan he was not fond of (until eternity), and it led to a huge heavenly and monstrous combat. The result, however, was a tie, for both of them had taken as much damage as they had inflicted upon each other. So, heavily injured, they fell apart on earth...

And Sesshoumaru found himself being "healed" by "Rin."

He had then presumed that his sudden weariness caused his vision to distort. How else could he be seeing Rin's face on a brash woman?

"Get off me," he ordered, and she shrugged before straightening up and standing beside him.

"Despite your cool appearance, you are quite pitiful," she opined, and his eyes became crimson in a seething look.

She elevated an eyebrow, and he shunted his head with a grunt of, "I can heal by myself. Get out of my sight."

She tsk-ed━something his Rin never did in front of him. "What a troublesome fellow."

Sesshoumaru clenched his jaw, but he didn't retort. If it was a warpage, his cognizance to it should have revealed reality already. But why...Why did she still resemble Rin? Why was she also called Rin?

Rin was buried three years ago...So why was she before him then? Was she really his Rin reincarnated as a variant? Or was she a puppet made by his mother to play on his memory?

He couldn't tell, nor could he move any further without feeling a twinge all over his body. He had wasted his energy to daunt her, and his muscles groaned at the unclosing of his wounds.

There was a sigh from the Rin-look-alike, and she bent beside him. "You are hopeless, Sesshoumaru."

He couldn't become ireful at her, especially when she frowned at his gashes. She was still Rin...She had Rin's expressions when she tended him after his petty battles years ago. She had Rin's worried orbs despite the displeased look.

There was something ineffable that was gnawing Sesshoumaru. He had been...feeling hollow after her demise, and it increased at the sight of "Rin." Just as strengthening tenseiga at the expense of Rin's life, Rin's death three years ago...had made Sesshoumaru's life senseless. In spite of the empire he'd finally established, his days had become listless. It was a demerit he'd denied at first, but as time trickled past, he had learned to accept the truth that the loss hit him much more than he'd thought.

She was the first human he'd cared for.

She was the first human he'd ever loved.

And the last.

So for someone who look like Rin to emerge afore him, he was distraught. If she was his mother's puppet, what could she be after?

"Name yourself," he commanded and she loured.

"You already knew my name, ungrateful dog."

He bared his fangs in an unseemly hiss, and she didn't even recoil.

"You are quite stubborn," she commented and handed him his mended clothes, shoes, and spired breastplate.

He viewed her coldly. "Leave."

"That won't do," she uttered. "You are an intruder, so I will lead you out of this place after you've recovered. This is an abode unfit for demons and humans."

The area they were in was a grassy clearing circled with bamboos. The sky was endued with a coral, indigo, and violet hue, and the sun was most likely low on the horizon for it was unseen.

"This Sesshoumaru will not tolerate disobedience."

She twittered. "I have no reason to obey a fallen puppy."

He shot her a wry look (especially for having a giggle suchlike to his Rin), and she just stared him down.

Shortly she soughed. "Yet even so, I will not leave you. As much as you are an intruder, I believe you are a lord like my liege, albeit of disparate hierarchy. It is improper to make immediate enemies of youkais like you."

Her sharpness was not lost to him. How much she...varied from his Rin's personality was very...immense.

Still, she was not human, unalike his Rin.

"Name your kind." Sesshoumaru's imperious tone wasn't abating.

"I am special."

"This Sesshoumaru stands no aff━"

"I am not obliged to explicate to a total stranger."

He eyed her stoically. "Leave."

She didn't, and he remained frigid as she slipped out a golden flute from her honey-colored ceinture. Without a care, she started to play an irregular tune, and the daiyoukai was shutting his eyelids before he could resist speedily.

* * *

**XDXDXDXD~nya~**

"Yama no naka~ Mori no naka~ Kaze no naka~ Yume no naka~ Sesshoumaru-sama doko ni iru? Jaken-sama wo shita naete~ Watashi ha hitori de machimashou~ Sesshoumaru-sama omodori wo~"

"Rin." Sesshoumaru stood behind the young woman who sat on a huge flat-topped rock.

There was a gasp, and the maiden whirled with a gleeful expression. "Sesshoumaru-sama!"

"Stop singing that song. You are a grown human."

Rin just giggled. "But you always come after I sing it."

Sesshoumaru didn't reply but just looked away.

Her laugh was always...a grand melody brought by the wind. It drew him frequently towards her, and visiting her had become a habit he couldn't desist.

With an exterior that gave nothing away, he told her, "Don't go to these woods just to sing."

She smiled. "Well...it's not like you won't find me."

"Don't be foolish."

He was worried; she could tell it now. He wouldn't admit it forthrightly, but she had always observed him. She had come to grasp his temperament and implications, and she incessantly believed in his kindness.

Swinging her feet gaily, she questioned, "How was your travel?"

"Ordinary." He handed her a light-colored wooden comb━with carved chrysanthemum on the spine━from the inside of his sleeves, and her eyes brightened.

"It's gorgeous! Thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama!" she gushed.

It was his common rote. He would journey, visit her, and give her an article befitting to those of her gender.

Time had long since been stalling on the daiyoukai while it, favorably or not, moved forward for his former travelling companion. The numerous change of seasons had made an enchantress out of Rin. She had outgrown her orange checkered kosode and now covered her lengthened arms, trunk, and legs with a periwinkle furisode, with embellished white fans and an amethyst-bepainted obi. Additionally, she had plumped up on the right places, as appropriate to her sex. Her extended sable locks had been untied ever since and let to frame her face, and geta now adorned her slightly larger snow-white delicate feet.

On the contrary, Sesshoumaru was immutable. He looked as young as the first time Rin had met him. His fulgent long hair and the strokes on his eyelids, cheeks, and hands hadn't shifted. His kimono was still like ivory and still bore on his left shoulder (and possibly other parts) the exquisitely decorated three six-petaled white plum or cherry blossoms, each in a red background and white bordered kikkō-like form. He still had his resplendent tipped pauldron, black haramaki, and chalky furry boa. His primrose and purple heko-obi still bound his waist like a flower bow and held his swords to his left side. Lastly, his alabaster hakama still puffed up like paper balloons on his ankles, just above his pointed inky binding shoes.

If someone examined them, one might have thought they were lovers. Yet no matter how they appeared to the watcher, their association was invariable...Or at least, it was carefully maintained since they met and parted, and time went on.

Sesshoumaru was not an enjoyable presence, but Rin was always...blissful when they see each other. He didn't talk that much━just stared at the sky and smelled the wind while harkening to it most often━but she didn't mind his muteness. She...treated him specially not out of fear or a servant's loyalty...

She was━despite her apparent infatuation with him━an enigma. She would become jolly at the sight of a formidable fiend yet sequester herself from her own kind, besides the throng of his good-for-nothing half-brother. She would initiate empirical conversations with him although his existence was plain and dull.

Why did she keep on caring what he does? Why would she desire for his return? It was an absurd quirk of her to want his presence, but he didn't grumble (not that he ever did, except when his father handed tessaiga to Inuyasha).

"Rin," he called again, and she peered at him.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?"

He had been...debating with himself for a long time. His father's "love" had always revolted him, but he would no longer be blind or pretend to be blind any further. The irony had been pointed out to him from the start, but he was just contending strongly...

But not for long.

Rin waited patiently for his answer as always, and he concluded that his decision is apt. Even how alike they were, he had resolved never to be daft like his father, and his choice was faultless.

With a steady perusal to the young woman, he asked, "Rin, do you want to rule an empire?"

* * *

**XDXDXDXD~nya~**

An odd sound roused the scathed lord from his memory-turned-dream.

"Here you go, Ah-Un."

Sesshoumaru's eyelids fluttered open, and sitting against a bamboo, he spotted━on the farther left━his brown two-headed dragon youkai being fed by Rin...

Sesshoumaru bolted to her and clasped her arm. _Rin!_

It was as though he saw an apparition. His eyes had expanded in shock as she twinkled in stupefaction. Then she loured at him, and he discovered that it couldn't be her...She just looked like his wife...nothing more.

_How did she know I call it, Ah-Un? _he thought with a glimpse at his beast. It was too...precise. Everything was so precise.

Was it all an illusion? A stratagem of a hidden foe? His mother would never be so low, so who was it? Who was...toying on him?

"You're quite flighty even after a night of slumber," she observed, and he vacantly shunted his head as he released her.

They were in the same clearing. The sun was overhead, and the sky was a brilliant light blue. Gazing down at himself, he learned that she had clothed him...and his wounds had healed.

"I didn't heal you. This place did," she informed━to which he narrowed his eyes. Then, he glanced at Ah-Un, who made an incomprehensible noise and inclined heads.

"Rin" noticed his gaze and shrugged. "Your dragon came to find you, and I'd thought you would need your ride to go out of here. Honestly, this will be the last thing I will relent upon, dog. You have to leave this place immediately."

Sesshoumaru raised his brow. "This is a part of my dominion."

"It isn't. It belongs to Taisha-sama."

Sesshoumaru was sullen and listened to the gale...but there was none. However, a shrill voice pierced the air.

"Sesshoumaru-sama! Sesshoumaru-sama, where are youuuuuuuuuuuu?"

It was the imp Jaken, and "Rin" heard him also.

"Your friend is here too. You must go."

He shot katanas at her for the equality she thought he partook with his servant, but he soon scanned the bamboos in thought. If she was an illusion...perhaps he could find that out with another point of view.

Noiselessly he traversed out of the clearing and towards Jaken's voice. Consequently "Rin" and Ah-Un followed him from behind.

The bamboos were compact and scattered on some places; sunlight streamed in the gaps of the poles. Birds chirped and intoned. Hares, snakes, and foxes passed by them. Subsequently a wind whistled, and their clothes flapped with the soft blows.

"Sesshoumaru-sama!" Jaken's voice continued, now nearer.

Spotting pebbles past a brook, Sesshoumaru took some and traipsed on. Jaken's back was the first thing they saw, and without sweat, the daiyoukai hurled the rock to his retainer━and it hit the latter on the back of his head.

"Guk!" Jaken's verdant head bent down with the collision, and with realization, he spun around with shining orbs and ran to his master. "Sesshoumaru-sama~~! I'm glad you're━!"

The imp gasped and gaped at "Rin," and Sesshoumaru surveyed Jaken to confirm what had been perturbing him all this time.

"Rin? I can't believe it's you! Rin!" There were tears in the kappa's eyes.

It was not just him after all, and Sesshoumaru was pensive. _**What **__is she?_

On the other hand, "Rin" whipped her head to the daiyoukai in perplexity. "How does this creature know me, dog?"

Jaken drew his breath again and pumped his wooden staff up at her. "Rin! How could you be so impudent? You're Sesshoumaru-sama's wife!"

"Wife?" She blinked in unbelief. "That is ridiculous."

Jaken fumed while swinging his staff. "Rin, you ingrate! I don't know how you were revived, but it's better that you weren't af━!"

"Shut up, Jaken, or I'll kill you," Sesshoumaru threatened and stared icily at the woman beside him. "Rin is already dead, and will always be."

"But Sesshoumaru-sama━!"

He growled, and the imp cowered.

"I...look like your dead wife?" The assumed imposter waggled her head. "That's impossible. I'm a━"

"It is preposterous to equate yourself to Rin." Sesshoumaru unsheathed bakusaiga. "I'll prove that you're not her."

"W-wait, milord! What are you━?" Jaken feared for what was to come as the daiyoukai smiled and slashed...

And "Rin's" robe fell on the ground.

**XDXDXDXDXD~nya~**

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**A/N: **It's always funny when Sesshoumaru smiles and Jaken sweat-drops (because he thinks something bad will happen). ^^

I have never ventured the Inuyasha universe before as a fanfic writer, so it's quite odd for me...Anyway, my first thought when I saw Sesshoumaru was, "SAILOR MOON!"

But then he's a guy, and his hair is silver...and his hair is not shaped up in buns with trailing pigtails...and a lot of other reasons...

Shoot...^^

How was this chapter? You may share your thoughts. \(^.^)/

P.S. This is still un-edited, so I will return to it soon. ^^


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